0:02

You wake up before your alarm. No sunlight

0:05

peaks through your window. It's far too early for

0:07

that. You're confused for just a moment,

0:09

and then you hear another explosion. It

0:11

echoes in the night, rattling the walls in the

0:13

window of your apartment. This is not the

0:15

first bomb you've heard, and it sounds far enough

0:18

away that you know the danger isn't a minute.

0:20

That surprises you a little bit, the fact that you recognized

0:23

it's not close. You realize you've now heard

0:25

enough explosions to have a pretty good ear for them,

0:28

and when they're close enough to worry about. It's

0:30

weird how quickly life in a war zone becomes

0:32

just life. You get up,

0:35

there's no sense trying to get back to sleep. As

0:37

you stumble over to the kitchen to grind some coffee,

0:39

you hear the crack of rifle fire. It's

0:41

distant, too far enough away that it sounds

0:43

almost like firecrackers, but you know

0:45

it's not. You fill the grinder, put

0:47

on the top, and press down. Nothing happens.

0:50

You realize, belatedly in your sleep fogged

0:52

brain that the powers out again. You

0:55

wonder which of the dozen different rebel and insurgents

0:57

groups in your state might be responsible. You

0:59

don't even bother to get at your phone and check the news.

1:02

It doesn't really matter, and you've got shipped to do.

1:04

It's still dark outside, and since you're already

1:06

up, you might as well take advantage of the situation

1:08

and beat the crowd to the grocery store. They've

1:11

been short on everything lately, thanks to separatists

1:13

in northern California. Most nuts are basically

1:16

unavailable. Rebel insurgents have been bombing

1:18

highways in West Texas, so beef is way

1:20

up. You don't tend to buy much meat these days

1:22

anyway, though. All the blackouts make your fridge

1:24

unreliable, and you can't afford to spend money

1:26

on stuff that goes bad. You throw

1:29

on a light jacket and roll downstairs. Two

1:31

or three years ago, before all this started, you'd

1:33

have popped in your earbuds and put on some music to

1:35

accompany the walk. Today, you figure

1:37

it'd be best to have your wits about you.

1:39

You're lucky you live so close to the grocery store.

1:42

There's a police checkpoint on the way, and the vehicle

1:44

line is always a nightmare this time up day.

1:47

As you close and lock your door behind you.

1:49

You try to ignore the pop and chatter of not so

1:51

distant gunfire. You

1:53

have friends on the separatist side of town. You have a

1:55

cousin up in the hills. You're not sure what he's doing

1:57

there exactly, but it's probably part of why AIGs

2:00

have gotten so expensive lately. They

2:02

all have reasons for what they're doing, and you don't believe

2:04

the government lying about any of the sides anymore.

2:06

But you're also not dumb enough to want to stand up and

2:08

fight. The official death toll is still

2:10

just a few thousand, but international monitors

2:13

claim it must be much higher. There

2:15

are days when you do feel like doing something,

2:17

maybe even joining your friends, but most

2:19

days, like today, you've got shipped to do.

2:22

It's twenty four, an election year.

2:24

Every candidate is doing their level best to not

2:26

call this what it is, a civil war. You

2:29

hear that phrase out on the street, though, more and more

2:31

every day. You reach a crosswalk

2:34

and start to step across on the left.

2:36

Your eyes are drawn to the massive bulk of a police

2:38

bear cat as it trundles across the street parallel

2:40

to you. A man sits up top in the

2:42

couple up his hands on a machine gun that for

2:45

now has its nose pointed up in the air.

2:47

He stares at you, and you try not to stare

2:49

back. As you hurry along with the supermarket.

2:51

You ask yourself the question you've asked almost

2:53

every day for the last three years. How

2:56

did it get this bad? Did

3:00

that seem far fetched? You outlandish? If

3:03

so, let me try to show you why the preceding

3:05

passage might well be reality for

3:07

millions of Americans startlingly soon

3:09

if something isn't done. The second

3:12

American Civil War doesn't sound like a

3:14

crazy, distant possibility to me, and

3:16

it hasn't for a while. I'm Robert

3:18

Evans, and it's my job to help you see

3:21

what I see. Two

3:24

thousand sixteen was the first year I started

3:27

seriously considering the possibility of

3:29

a second American Civil War. It was

3:31

the year I reported on the major protests surrounding

3:33

the most contentious election in modern American

3:35

history. I was there at the r n C in

3:37

the d n C, and at both I saw tremendous

3:40

hatred on display. Leftist protesters

3:42

hated Hillary Clinton and mainstream Democrats

3:45

conspicuously armed. Right wing protesters

3:47

hated the leftists. Every one hated

3:49

the police, and the police certainly seemed to hate

3:51

the protesters. I also traveled

3:54

to a Rack in two thousand sixteen to report

3:56

on the siege of Mosel, but nothing I saw

3:58

there, nothing I saw anywhere that year,

4:00

scared me more than watching Alex Jones

4:02

speak on the first day of the r n C. A

4:05

huge crowd had gathered to see him. Many

4:07

of them were armed, dozens of young men wearing

4:09

body armor and packing a R fifteens

4:11

patrolled in the Ohio summer heat.

4:14

The speech was characteristically for Jones,

4:16

angry, filled with shouted declarations

4:18

of hatred. That did not surprise me.

4:21

What surprised me was the crowd's reaction to

4:23

how he labeled the Democratic Party.

4:25

These are not liberal.

4:34

You can hear the reckless hate in the audio, the

4:36

sheer rage these people had. Seeing

4:38

dozens and dozens of armed Americans calling

4:41

their political opponents scum outdoors

4:43

and broad daylight at a major party

4:45

political convention. Now,

4:47

in two thousand nineteen, it's the kind of thing that seems

4:50

normal, but at the time it was new and frightening.

4:53

I was just a few feet away when adult swims

4:55

Eric Andre showed up to troll Jones. I

4:57

know a lot of people watched that moment on TV or

5:00

on YouTube. What you may not have seen was

5:02

how close the crowd looked to tearing Andrea

5:04

apart. Some of those people wanted

5:06

to fucking kill him.

5:09

Most of that armed, angry crowd was polite

5:11

enough to me, lily white bearded Southerner

5:13

that I am, but several of them made it clear

5:15

that they believed a fight was coming. We have

5:17

to take back our country no matter what. Was

5:19

the general sentiment coming from the mouth

5:22

of someone dressed like they just stepped out of downtown

5:24

Fellujiah, It's sent a chill down my spine.

5:27

By the time September rolled around, I had started

5:29

seriously thinking about the possibility of a

5:31

second American Civil War. I decided

5:33

to write an article about it for Cracked, where I worked

5:35

as an editor. I didn't want it to just be

5:38

my speculation, so I reached out to a number

5:40

of experts, ex federal agents and military

5:42

officers and civil war scholars. One

5:44

of these experts was David Kilcolin, former

5:47

chief strategist for the U. S. State Department

5:49

and a major architect of the surge in Iraq.

5:52

He's one of the world's leading counter insurgency

5:54

experts. When I reached out to these people,

5:56

I had very little faith that any of them would respond

5:58

to me. My topic seemed too far fetched

6:01

and ridiculous, and these were all serious

6:03

people. I didn't think they'd waste their time

6:05

with my speculative sci fi bullshit.

6:08

To my surprise, every one of them responded

6:10

to me, and to my growing discomfort, none

6:12

of them thought the topic was ridiculous. David

6:14

Kilcolin told me he'd been researching the idea

6:17

for a while. He did not think a Civil

6:19

War two was imminent, but he worried about

6:21

it. Everyone I talked, too, worried about it.

6:23

They all saw warning signs that our nation might

6:25

be inching closer to unspeakable violence.

6:29

In the years since, the rest of the world seems

6:31

to be catching up to this possibility. Since

6:34

President Trump's election, we have seen a mighty

6:36

surge in political violence across the country.

6:38

Antifa in groups like the Proud Boys and

6:40

Patriot Prayer have battled in the streets of multiple

6:43

American cities. Heather Higher

6:45

was murdered in a fascist terrorist attack on

6:47

counter protesters in Charlottesville. The

6:49

magabomber and the Tree of Life synagogue shooter

6:52

both struck at political and racial enemies

6:54

of the far right in the same week. In

6:57

June of two thousand seventeen, almost

6:59

exactly a year after Alex jones Is rally

7:01

at the r n C, Dana Losh of the

7:03

n r A put up a video that seems almost

7:05

tailor made to highlight how much worse things

7:07

got in the months after the election. They

7:10

use their media to assassinate real news.

7:12

They use their schools to teach children

7:14

that their president is another hitler. They

7:17

use their movie stars and singers and

7:19

comedy shows and award shows to repeat

7:21

their narrative over and over again.

7:24

And then they use their ex president to endorse

7:26

the resistance. All to make

7:29

them march, make them protest, make

7:31

them scream racism and sexism

7:33

and xenophobia and homophobia, to

7:35

smash windows, burn cars, shutdown

7:38

interstates and airports, fully and terrorize

7:41

the law abiding until the only option

7:43

left is for the police to do their jobs

7:46

and stop the madness. And

7:48

when that happens, they'll use it as an

7:50

excuse for their outrage. The

7:52

only way we stop this, the only

7:55

way we save our country and Our

7:57

freedom is to fight this violence

8:00

of lies with a clenched fist

8:02

of truth. I'm the National

8:04

Rifle Association of America, and

8:07

I'm Freedom's safest place.

8:09

A year later, Roger Stone, famed

8:12

Trump ally and recently indicted asshole,

8:14

had this to say, Try to impeach

8:16

you, just try it. You will have a

8:18

spasm of violence in this country,

8:21

an insurrection like you've never seen. You think,

8:23

no question, You think if you go in peach like the

8:25

country sides are heavily armed, My friend,

8:28

yes, absolutely, this is not

8:30

in nineteen seventy four. They

8:32

the people will not stand for impeachment

8:35

of politician. Who votes for it would

8:37

be endangering their own life. There will be violence

8:40

on both sides. And of course

8:42

Alex Jones's own rhetoric has escalated

8:44

considerably over the last two years. I

8:47

know the instinct here is to write him off as a

8:49

nut shouting into the wilderness, but more than

8:51

a million Americans watch or listen to

8:53

his show each month. He is not nearly

8:55

as fringe as you want him to be. You're

8:58

trying to start the civil war with people.

9:00

You're taking our kindness for weakness. Do

9:03

you understand the American people will

9:05

kill all of you. If you want a real

9:08

war a seventeen seventy six.

9:12

I'm not the one that's called for violence. You're gonna get

9:14

wrecked, bads. I don't want a war. I

9:16

don't need some you know, coming of age

9:18

deal to kill a bunch of liberals. I just can't.

9:20

But I also feel like I'm in dereliction of

9:23

as a citizen of my duty not

9:25

saying we have to start getting ready for

9:27

insurrection and civil war. After

9:29

two years of constantly escalating rhetoric

9:32

and violence, even America's political

9:34

moderates have started to worry. Last

9:36

October, the New York Times published an

9:38

opinion article titled the American

9:40

Civil War, Part Two. The

9:42

National Review, a mainstream conservative

9:44

magazine, published The Origins

9:46

of Our Second Civil War a few months later.

9:49

So maybe this all still sounds ridiculous

9:51

to you, but let the record show that a whole mess

9:54

of heavily armed people are already loudly

9:56

fantasizing about mass violence. That's

9:58

not the only ingredients you need for a vicious

10:00

civil war, but it is certainly one

10:03

of them. Even so, to most

10:05

people, the idea of a second American

10:07

Civil war feels more like science fiction

10:09

than a possible future. I even

10:11

feel that way sometimes when I step away from

10:13

Twitter and ignore my news feed and walk the quiet,

10:16

tree lined streets of my neighborhood. It

10:18

feels silly when I stand in line at the d m V

10:21

or hop onto a public bus or train. The

10:23

systems that govern our lives here are so

10:25

intricate, so seemingly stable, and so

10:28

settled that any kind of mass upset feels

10:30

almost impossible, fantastic even.

10:33

But I have walked through cities where the public buses

10:35

still run, just without windows because

10:37

the blasts from mortars have blown them all out. I've

10:40

watched people stand in line and fill out forms

10:42

and government buildings while howitzer shake

10:44

the foundation and machine guns chatter half

10:46

a mile away. I have seen systems

10:48

collapse. Everything I've seen and

10:51

everything I've read over the last two years

10:53

has convinced me that the United States is closer

10:55

to that kind of terror than almost anyone

10:57

is willing to admit. And

11:00

so I can't ignore Alex Jones as a cook on

11:02

the fringe. I think he's dangerous, and I

11:04

think he represents a strain of ideology that

11:06

could collapse this nation into apocalyptic

11:08

violence. We

11:20

welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast

11:23

where every season I take some fantastic,

11:25

unlikely scenario and explain how it could

11:27

happen, why it might be closer than you'd think,

11:29

and how it will look when or if

11:31

it comes. This season, we

11:34

are talking about the Second American Civil

11:36

War, and this episode we're exploring one possible

11:38

way that war could start. Today, the

11:40

perpetrators will be Donald Trump and the American

11:42

far right in its most armed, vicious, and violent

11:45

incarnation. The show will be on the other

11:47

foot for the next episode. My sympathies are

11:49

with the left, but my goal here is not partisan fearmongering.

11:52

It's an exploration of the possibilities. I

11:54

want to start by dispelling sub myths. I think

11:57

the main reason many people have trouble imagining

11:59

a second Civil war is the First Civil War.

12:01

And if you think of the second Civil War is a

12:03

replay of the first, where a huge junk of the nation

12:05

decides to secede, there are two cleanly

12:07

defined sides and two opposing militaries

12:10

that clash in the field, then yes, it probably

12:12

does seem impossible. But war doesn't

12:14

look like that anymore. In eighteen sixty

12:16

one, an army was just a bunch of men with rifles,

12:19

horses, and some cannons. Most of the kit

12:21

and modern soldier would take into battle with stuff

12:23

that many normal people owned already.

12:26

The existence of aircraft, drones, satellite

12:28

guided missiles and tanks has changed things. A

12:30

bunch of dudes with rifles marching on Washington,

12:33

d C. Would be wiped out by a single eight

12:35

in war tawk. Older wars

12:37

tend to have real clear beginnings. The

12:39

U s Civil War started with the capture of

12:41

Fort Sumter, the Revolutionary War started

12:43

with a fighting at Lexington and conquered World

12:46

War two started with the invasion of Poland. But

12:49

the Syrian Civil War didn't suddenly start

12:51

so much as it evolved from popular protests

12:53

and clashes with police in the street, to brutal

12:56

state repression of those protesters, and

12:58

eventually to a shooting war. And

13:00

when that war started, there were way the funk more

13:02

than two sides, the Free Syrian Army,

13:04

Jabbat al nusra Isis, the YPG,

13:06

and dozens of other groups all took different positions,

13:09

many fighting against both the Syrian state

13:11

and other rebel groups. It's a gigantic,

13:13

confusing mess. Any mass civil

13:16

conflict in the U s would probably look similar.

13:18

So forget the Union and the Confederacy, forget

13:21

clear sides in a clear beginning. Imagine

13:23

you're sitting at home one day, browsing the Internet.

13:26

You read about the beginning of a protest in Wall

13:28

Street. The first pictures and videos that start

13:30

circulating on social media probably look a lot

13:32

like Occupy Once did. I imagine

13:34

these protesters are angry at Trump. As I write

13:36

this in February of twenty nineteen, protesters

13:39

have assembled in d C and several other points around

13:41

the nation to attack the president's declaration of

13:43

a state of emergency over what he calls a

13:45

crisis at the border. So let's

13:47

say Trump does something else, fucked up a set of

13:49

mass deportations. Maybe people take to

13:51

the street to protest in huge numbers, millions

13:54

of folk across the country. Some of the largest

13:56

protests are in New York, right outside of Trump

13:58

Tower. It will be hot. Most

14:00

large protests occur in the dead of summer, and

14:02

as I write this, we're edging ever closer to

14:04

that time of the year, So you'll have thousands

14:07

of people crowding in around Trump Tower. They're

14:09

hot, sweaty and furious. So

14:11

far nothing new. The first pictures and video

14:13

clips that you see look normal to anyone who's paid

14:15

attention to the news for the last decade. Folks

14:17

with funny signs, people in costume packed

14:19

crowds of marchers. You go about your day,

14:22

checking Twitter or Facebook every now and again.

14:24

You visit the gym and see footage from the rally

14:26

on CNN, Wolf Blitzer talking to some

14:28

black clad activist with a mask over his face.

14:31

Lines of riot cops stand ominously in the

14:33

background, sweating through their body armor. It

14:35

seems pretty normal, at least for twenty nineteen,

14:38

and then, rather suddenly it's not. The

14:40

tone of the news dripping out from New York Changes

14:42

becomes chaotic, erratic, and violent.

14:45

Now you see people running away, blurry

14:47

footage of blood and bodies on the street, evidence

14:50

that something terrible has happened. For a while,

14:52

all you know is that people are dying in the Big

14:54

Apple. Gradually the story

14:56

comes out. The police opened fire with what we're

14:58

supposed to be less than the full rounds, but

15:01

they were piste off or legitimately scared,

15:03

and they hit several people in their faces and heads.

15:05

Several of those folks died and others were horribly

15:08

injured. For the rest of the day. For the next

15:10

week, every new station rotates the

15:12

same grim footage of corpses under streets

15:14

and weeping activists shaking from the aftermath

15:16

of lethal violence. There's video

15:18

of the shooting. When I see it, I'm sure it

15:20

looks like the police fired without cause. My

15:23

conservative parents disagree, pointing to what might

15:25

be protesters throwing something. We get

15:27

into a fight about exactly how much force that

15:29

could possibly justify the whole

15:31

country has that argument who you blame

15:33

for the deaths winds up depending on where you stand

15:36

politically. Remember the confrontation

15:38

between Nathan Phillips and Nick Sandman at the March

15:40

for Life in January of twenty nineteen. As

15:43

I write this, it's just a few weeks old. You

15:45

can watch hours of video from multiple angles,

15:47

and yet on social media, right wing pundits

15:50

say the full video completely exonerates those

15:52

kids. Left wing pundits say the exact

15:54

opposite, And these people are all working

15:56

from the same evidence. The inciting

15:59

incident for theoretical civil war will be

16:01

like that. What was done will matter

16:03

less than how it's interpreted by different segments

16:05

of America in their different social media bubbles.

16:08

After the murder of Heather Higher at Charlottesville,

16:11

a narrative developed on the fascist side of things

16:13

that claimed James Fields, the killer, had

16:15

been assaulted by antifa will in his car. They

16:18

argued that he'd accelerated into the crowd in

16:20

a panic, and that Heather Higher had actually died

16:22

from a heart attack. None of this was true,

16:24

but hours of video and countless picture based

16:26

arguments were concocted by Internet Nazis

16:29

in an attempt to exonerate their guy.

16:31

This narrative did not spread widely because

16:33

fucking nobody wanted to be associated with the

16:35

Charlottesville Nazis. But that will

16:37

not be the case for this protest. We're imagining

16:40

no one's wearing a swastika or holding a tiki

16:42

torch. You've got cops in riot gear and activists

16:45

in black masks. Both sides are sympathetic

16:47

to one chunk of the country and reviled by the

16:49

other. Even at Charlottesville,

16:52

President Trump was unwilling to fully condemn the neo

16:54

Nazi demonstrators, declaring that there were good

16:56

people on both sides. So who do you think

16:58

he'll support? In a battle the between cops and protesters

17:01

outside of his big dumb tower. He

17:03

literally ran as the law and order president.

17:06

Just last October two thousand eighteen,

17:08

President Trump declared Democrats to be anti

17:10

police and the party of crime. Now,

17:13

this one bloody protest would not lead inevitably

17:16

to a civil war. It just starts

17:18

a process. Crossing the bridge from

17:20

civil unrest to civil warfare doesn't require

17:22

a magical and improbable shift in the firmament

17:25

of reality. It just takes a bunch of the same

17:27

fucked up ship that's always happening in America,

17:30

happening all at once and in quick succession.

17:33

One bloody protest on Wall Street and a defensive

17:35

response from the Republican President would lead

17:37

to more protests all around the country. Activists

17:40

across the nation would take to the streets in numbers

17:42

not seen since the Iraq War protests in two

17:44

thousand three. We can look to our last

17:46

two years of history to guess where these demonstrations

17:49

would be most violent. Berkeley, California,

17:51

and Portland, Oregon are probably right at the top

17:53

of that list. For the last two years,

17:56

far right and far left activists have clashed

17:58

bloodily in the streets of both cities. Portland

18:00

has seen more street action in the last two years than

18:02

any other city in the country. This is thanks

18:04

in large part to the activism of a fellow named

18:06

Joey Gibson. He's the head of a far right

18:09

protest group called Patriot Prayer, and he's

18:11

led dozens of rallies that have ended with hundreds

18:13

of injuries from minor to life threatening.

18:16

Recently, the Portland Police Bureau were revealed

18:18

to have been collaborating with Patriot Prayer and Joey

18:20

Gibson via text messages. The collaboration

18:23

seems to have gone as far as to include police

18:25

advising right wing demonstrators where

18:27

smaller groups of leftist activists were located,

18:30

and giving them suggestions on how they might avoid

18:33

being searched for weapons. At one demonstration

18:35

last summer, Patriot Prayer members were caught on the roof

18:37

of a nearby building with rifles, presumably

18:39

so they could open fire if ANTIFOD did

18:41

something they considered to be a step out of line.

18:44

Now Portland is a famously liberal

18:46

city, but it's lodged in the middle of some extremely

18:49

conservative rural and suburban communities

18:51

in a state with an extraordinarily high rate

18:53

of gun ownership. Portland,

18:55

Oregon is actually a great microcosm for the entire

18:58

country. That way, you've got conservative gun

19:00

owning America versus bleeding heart gun grabbing

19:02

liberals. So tempers are high

19:04

in that area. And at this set

19:06

of protests we're imagining the crowd is huge

19:08

and furious about what they see as the murder of

19:10

their comrades in New York. In the middle

19:13

of this, Joey Gibson and his goons show up

19:15

to rep their side of what's still just a culture

19:17

war. They're shoving and punches, as

19:19

there have been so many times before in Portland,

19:21

but this time someone pulls a gun. This

19:23

person kills two people. There's video of

19:26

the event. It's blurry, confusing, but

19:28

we get one clear shot of the shooter, his

19:30

hand on a smoking gun and a Maga hat

19:32

on his head. The left sees a

19:34

mass murderer firing on unarmed demonstrators.

19:37

The president embraces his supporter. There's

19:39

an investigation, of course, but rather than shutting

19:42

up, the shooter does what people do now in nineteen

19:44

when something like this happens. He goes on

19:47

TV. Nick Sandman's response

19:49

to his kerfuffle with Nate Phillips is now the

19:51

blueprint for how to deal with this kind of public

19:53

incident. So the shooter is embraced

19:55

as a hero by a lot of people. His name becomes

19:58

a catchphrase on the fire right, the term used

20:00

to describe giving protesters what they deserve.

20:02

Right wingers on Twitter post gifts of him holding

20:05

his gun when they get into arguments with liberals.

20:07

The left responds, of course, with more protests,

20:09

some outside of the same Fox News offices

20:12

where this man talks to Morning Joe or Laura

20:14

Ingraham or whoever. Americans

20:16

see what they want to see in that too, a murderer

20:18

being celebrated for killing liberals, or a

20:20

horde of unhinged leftists banging at the gates.

20:23

The cops in New York and the Portland shooter all

20:25

have their trials, and the nation holds its breath

20:27

waiting to see whose version of justice

20:29

will be done. The Portland shooter

20:32

walks free, so do the NYPD

20:34

officers. In

20:36

April, a jury acquitted

20:38

four l a p D officers for the violent

20:40

and videotaped beating of Rodney King. Tens

20:43

of thousands of primarily black and Latino

20:45

citizens took to the streets, overwhelming

20:47

the police and doing more than a billion dollars

20:49

in damage. The seventh Infantry Division

20:51

in the first Marine Division, along with every federal

20:54

law enforcement agency imaginable, were

20:56

called in to contain the violence. Now

20:58

that was one city. Imagine riots

21:01

like that in three or four cities, while dozens

21:03

of other cities hosts peaceful but still massive

21:05

and disruptive protests. That's

21:07

how I imagine this would go. Rage spreading

21:09

virally in the age of the smartphone. Occupy

21:12

Wall Street was the first clear example of this, and

21:14

I think it was important of things to come. In

21:16

a matter of weeks, more than six hundred communities

21:18

in the United States hosted their own occupy

21:21

rallies and camps. So imagine

21:23

large chunks of multiple American cities

21:25

effectively rendered uncontrollable to the

21:27

federal government. Government buildings, ice

21:29

headquarters and the like occupied and blockaded.

21:32

In the cities that host riots. The Army and the Marines,

21:34

as well as the National Guard are called in to restore

21:37

order, or at least to attempt to do that. What

21:40

if they can't. In

21:42

two thousand and thirteen, protesters in Ukraine

21:44

angry about policies introduced by a controversial

21:46

right wing president, Victor Yennikovitch,

21:49

organized in their nation's capital. Yenikovitch

21:51

was an unspeakably wealthy, out of touch asshole

21:53

who deliberately inflamed divisions between

21:56

the rural and urban parts of his country and stole

21:58

huge amounts of money from the taxpayer. The

22:00

man had a private lake with a private boat

22:02

restaurant in his private palace, all built

22:04

with grifted cash. Many modern

22:07

and liberals and leftists certainly look at Donald

22:09

Trump as if he is that sort of man. The

22:11

protests started in Kiv's Independent Square,

22:13

otherwise known as the Maidan. It's essentially

22:16

like a giant protest in the National lawn

22:18

or at Wall Street. It's that kind of central location

22:20

to the Ukrainian people, and

22:23

these protesters basically, you know, picked a central

22:25

chunk of valuable real estate in a place that the

22:27

government couldn't ignore, right in the middle of the capitol.

22:30

Now, the Madon protests were a normal example

22:32

of street activism until they weren't. The police

22:34

cracked down on protesters brutally, and suddenly

22:37

social media flooded with pictures of beaten and battered

22:39

college students. This prompted more people

22:41

to take to the streets, friends and family members

22:43

of those activists who were livid at the violence done

22:46

to their loved ones. For days, the violence

22:48

escalated and the number of protesters grew. The

22:50

activists turned the Midon into a camp, something

22:52

like a temporary city within a city.

22:55

When happened in keV was not at that point

22:57

so very different from things we have experienced in the United

23:00

States. Occupy Wall Street and the Standing

23:02

Rock protests were both examples of activists

23:04

essentially seizing a crucial chunk of real

23:06

estate and refusing to leave. Unlike

23:09

those protests, the Maidan occupation did

23:11

not fizzle out. The activists did

23:13

not go home. They fought with the police

23:16

and battled the federal government for several epic

23:18

and bloody weeks, until finally President

23:20

Yanukovich was forced to flee power in the

23:22

country. The Ukrainians

23:24

resisted the worst violence their state could throw

23:27

at them. It was not an easy task. More

23:29

than a hundred people died, mostly to a

23:31

combination of police, snipers, and brutal hand

23:33

to hand combat. When I reported on

23:35

the Maidan Revolution in two thousand and fourteen, I

23:38

did not think that American activists would be capable

23:40

of the same badassary. I

23:42

was at Occupy Wall Street for a couple of nights back

23:44

in two thousand eleven, and at the time I wrote

23:46

it off as kind of a bust. But what I didn't

23:48

see then, because I was young and dumber,

23:51

was that all these links were being formed between different

23:53

left wing organizations and activists. I

23:55

met people at Standing Rock five years later

23:58

who started their activist careers at occup Pie

24:00

and bent a protests all over the country Ever

24:02

since, they've gotten good at organizing

24:04

and it being organized. With

24:07

a long enough history of unrest and street activism,

24:09

a nation's people build up a sort of protest

24:12

infrastructure that can sustain hardcore

24:14

resistance to the state for longer and longer periods

24:16

of time. Occupy Wall Street was

24:18

not good at sustaining itself, Standing

24:20

Rock did better. Those protests cost

24:22

the state of North Dakota thirty nine million dollars

24:25

to suppress and cost the company building the pipeline

24:27

as much as four point four billion. As

24:31

time has gone on and political tensions have ratcheted

24:33

up, the American people have grown more capable

24:35

of resisting their government in the streets. In an organized

24:38

way. Now, assuming all this

24:40

happens later in two thousand nineteen or two

24:42

twenty, this unrest would be going on at

24:44

the same time as the economy shifts its

24:47

metaphorical pants. Most economists

24:49

agree that our nation is currently heading towards a pretty

24:51

steeped fiscal cliff, and a quote from the Washington

24:54

Post here, more than a third of top

24:56

economic forecasters now predict a US

24:58

recession in according to the latest

25:00

blue Chip forecast, and forty percent of fund

25:02

managers in the latest Bank of America Maryland

25:04

survey expect global growth to slow

25:06

in the next year, the worst outlook for the world

25:09

economy since November two thousand eight.

25:12

So let's say the economists are right and that happens,

25:14

the economy slides off a ledge and into the goddamn

25:16

sea. So in the middle of all these protests,

25:19

all these murders, all this fury, there are waves

25:21

of layoffs and foreclosures. Not

25:24

only does the greatest recession in a generation

25:26

cause more unrest, more anger at Donald

25:28

Trump and his fellow billionaires, but it frees

25:30

a shipload of people up for street activism.

25:33

The recently laid off, the evicted, the desperate,

25:35

all flood the ranks of a left wing activist

25:37

movement with enough experienced organizers to

25:39

make use of them. Now, mass

25:41

protests and bloody riots have long been a part

25:44

of American life. So far, none of these

25:46

has ever sparked a civil war. It's kind

25:48

of like how literal sparks don't always start

25:50

fires. You need more than just a spark.

25:52

You need fuel to burn, dry logs and

25:55

sticks with plenty of tender or big

25:57

rolling hills covered in dead grass. In

25:59

past bloody civil disturbances, like the riots

26:02

after Martin Luther King Junior's murder, the Kent

26:04

State shootings, or the l A riots, there

26:06

just wasn't enough fuel in the rest of the country

26:08

for the fire to release spread. Modern

26:11

American history is filled with examples of individuals

26:13

who've tried to spark civil wars or revolutions

26:15

in this country. That was the stated goal

26:17

of the Columbine Shooters when they started their rampage.

26:20

It was Tim mcveigh's goal when he bombed the Murra

26:22

building in Oklahoma City. Neither of

26:24

those sparks caught either. That's

26:26

because the most critical ingredient for any hypothetical

26:29

civil war, the tinder for this blazing inferno

26:32

exists in the hearts and minds of the populace.

26:34

Before a civil war can start. Before any

26:36

of this could be real enough, people have to

26:39

want to kill their countrymen. I

26:41

don't know if we're there yet, but I think we're getting

26:43

close. In nineteen seventy two,

26:45

the National Opinion Research Center carried

26:47

out a survey rating each region of the country

26:50

based on what percentage of its population believed

26:52

most people can be trusted. In

26:55

the Old South the former Confederate States,

26:57

that number ranged from between thirty and forty

27:00

In the rest of the country, it was between fifty

27:02

and seventy percent. The national

27:04

average was forty six point two percent.

27:07

Now, in two thousand and twelve, the same n o

27:09

r C survey found very different results.

27:11

Most regions in the nation were well under

27:14

forty percent, with a national average dropping

27:16

from forty six point two percent to thirty

27:18

two point four percent. Other

27:20

surveys back up this unsettling trend up

27:23

on our site. It could happen here pod dot

27:25

com will showcase a graph. It charts

27:27

the results from several decades worth of Pew Survey

27:29

questions from nineteen fifty eight to two

27:32

thousand fifteen, all asking whether or

27:34

not respondents quote trust the federal

27:36

government to do what is right just about always

27:39

or most of the time. That number

27:41

peaked at nearly eighty percent of the population

27:43

in nineteen sixty one. By two thousand

27:45

fifteen, it had dropped to roughly twenty

27:47

percent. With some brief spikes during the

27:49

Carter administration and immediately after September

27:52

eleventh, the graph has shown a shockingly

27:54

steady rate of decline. There's

27:56

actually a huge amount of data the tracks that decline

27:58

in trust among Americans toward our fellow Americans.

28:01

Edelman, a global communications marketing

28:03

firm, has run a trust barometer for several

28:05

years now. It marked a fourteen percent decline

28:07

and trust of the US government from two thousand seventeen

28:10

to two thousand eighteen. Trust in businesses,

28:12

in in g O s, and in the media

28:14

all suffered similarly steep declines.

28:17

These are the sharpest drops Adelman has seen

28:20

in its eighteen years of measuring trust. Here's

28:22

Richard Edelman, head of the firm, quote.

28:25

This is the first time that a massive drop in trust

28:28

has not been linked to a pressing economic issue

28:30

or catastrophe like Japan's two thousand and eleven

28:32

Fukushima nuclear disaster. In fact,

28:34

it's the ultimate irony that it's happening at a time

28:36

of prosperity, with the stock market and unemployment

28:39

rates in the US at record highs Now,

28:42

it's worth noting that this quote from Edelman came from

28:44

a January two thousand eighteen Atlantic

28:46

article. Back then, the economy was booming.

28:49

Uh, it is currently somewhat less booming.

28:52

And uh, it's my opinion that we're unlikely

28:54

to trust each other more in the midst of the deep

28:56

recession most economists say is coming

28:59

now. Back in two fourteen, only twenty

29:01

percent of California residents supported peaceful

29:03

secession from the United States. By January

29:06

of two thousand seventeen, thirty three percent

29:08

of California supported secession. This

29:10

poll was talking about peaceful secession. Of course,

29:12

Californians aren't champing at the bit to take up

29:15

arms against the Union, but the numbers are

29:17

still compelling. Only sixty percent of California

29:19

Republicans were against the idea of a peaceful

29:21

secession. Data from

29:23

the other states supports this simple fact. More

29:26

Americans and more states now support

29:28

secession than at any point within the lifetime

29:30

of anyone listening to this podcast. Nationwide,

29:33

two percent of Americans support their

29:35

state secceeding. One way to look at

29:37

this is that seventy eight percent of Americans

29:39

don't want to seceed. But it's worth

29:41

noting that back when the whole Revolutionary War

29:44

thing kicked off, most people in the colonies

29:46

did not support seceeding from Great Britain,

29:48

or at least not openly. Now,

29:50

obviously, Epsos and Gallop weren't doing surveys

29:52

back then, people still drank mercury to cure their

29:54

colds. Statistics were not anyone's back

29:57

in seventeen seventy six, but historians

29:59

have spent a lot of time trying to figure out precisely

30:01

how many people in the thirteen colonies supported

30:03

independence. Most estimates you'll

30:05

find suggest that about a third of colonists were

30:07

loyal to the crown, a third were fence sitters

30:09

who didn't really land on either side of the issue,

30:12

and only a third of early Americans actively

30:14

supported the revolution. So if

30:16

that's the threshold three percent, while

30:18

then the twenty tent of Americans who currently

30:20

support secession is a little bit more worrying,

30:23

and it gets worrying or because this increased

30:25

support for the idea of secession has occurred

30:27

alongside something darker. More

30:30

Americans hate their fellow Americans

30:32

now than at any point in living memory. I'd

30:34

like to quote from a two thousand sixteen Pew

30:37

Research Center report on partisanship

30:39

and political animosity. Quote

30:42

for the first time and surveys dating back to nineteen

30:44

nine, two majorities in both parties expressed

30:46

not just unfavorable but very unfavorable

30:48

views of the other party, and today, sizeable

30:51

shares of both Democrats and Republicans say the

30:53

other party stirs feelings of not just frustration,

30:56

but fear and anger. More than half of

30:58

Democrats say they're publican

31:00

party makes them afraid, while forty percent

31:02

of Republicans say the same about the Democratic Party.

31:05

Among those highly engaged in politics, those

31:07

who say they vote regularly and either volunteer

31:09

for or donate to campaigns, fully seventy

31:12

of Democrats and scent of Republicans

31:14

say they are afraid of the other party.

31:18

This increasing fear has led both sides

31:20

to arm themselves to an unprecedented level.

31:22

That's been happening on the right since at least two thousand

31:25

eight, but the American left has not been associated

31:27

with gun ownership until recently. In

31:29

the wake of the two thousand sixteen election, the BBC

31:32

published an article titled y U s

31:34

liberals are now buying guns too quote

31:37

FBI background checks for gun transactions

31:39

sewed to a new record for a single day, a

31:42

hundred and eighty five thousand, seven hundred and

31:44

thirteen during the Black Friday sales on twenty

31:46

five November. Some of this has been put down

31:48

to gun retailers selling off stock at reduced

31:50

prices, but there have also been reports of more non

31:52

traditional buyers, such as African Americans

31:54

and other minorities, turning up at gun shops and

31:56

shooting ranges. Laura Smith, national

31:59

spokesperson for the a Rural Gun Club, says

32:01

her organization has seen a huge rise

32:03

in inquiries since November's election and a

32:05

ten percent increase in paid members. In

32:08

the years since Trump's election and the subsequent

32:10

street fighting between fascist and anti fascists,

32:13

there have been a surge in new left wing

32:15

gun organizations. These include Redneck

32:17

Revolt, the John Brown Gun Club, and

32:19

the Socialist Rifle Association. There

32:21

are now numerous left wing and right

32:23

wing political groups that center their identities

32:26

around being armed advocates of a political

32:28

ideology. Back in two

32:30

thousand sixteen, before any of those far left

32:32

gun groups existed, former State Department

32:34

strategist David Kilcolin told me this quote.

32:38

I think what we're seeing now is what I would describe as

32:40

a proto insurgency situation. The ingredients

32:42

are out there. If somebody knew what they were doing, they

32:44

could pull together in effective movement. In places

32:47

like Kurdistan, you see political parties that

32:49

have their own armed wing. Every political party

32:51

has its own armed wing. It's an artifact of a

32:53

broken political system that people start

32:55

arming themselves just in case. I might be

32:57

arming defensively and that looks offensive to

33:00

you, and it starts to escalate. On

33:02

my first trip to Iraq, I was embedded with the Peshmerga,

33:05

a Kurdish military force made up primarily

33:07

of soldiers loyal to the two major Kurdish

33:09

political parties. It's the equivalent

33:11

of the Republican and Democratic parties each having

33:14

armed wings. That sounds silly to imagine

33:16

here in America, but only because most Americans

33:18

trust their political process more than they trusted

33:21

gun. That trust erodes a little

33:23

more every day. As Adelman researcher

33:25

David bursof explained to The Atlantic quote,

33:28

the lifeblood of democracy is a common understanding

33:30

of the facts and information that we can then use

33:32

as a basis for negotiation and for compromise.

33:35

When that goes away, the whole foundation of

33:37

democracy gets shaken. On

33:39

a campaign stop in February, presidential

33:41

candidate Elizabeth Warren publicly questioned

33:44

whether or not Donald Trump would even

33:46

be a free person in a

33:48

lot of people want the president at least impeached.

33:51

Imagine how much more firm and more aggressive

33:53

the calls to force him out of office will become in

33:55

the wake of mass rioting and protests. Thirty

33:58

eight percent of Americans roughly support

34:00

the wall. Donald Trump just called a state of emergency

34:02

to build. That number probably represents

34:05

a pretty good estimate for his floor of support.

34:07

There is ideologically nothing but

34:09

daylight between these people and the liberals they

34:12

despise. There are already calls

34:14

on the far right for the president to assume what amounts

34:16

to dictatorial powers. On January

34:18

nine, two thousand nineteen, President Donald

34:21

Trump addressed the nation on what he called the border

34:23

crisis. Rampant speculation at

34:25

the time theorized that he would declare a state

34:27

of emergency that night. Here's what Alex

34:29

Jones's guest Mike Adams wanted

34:31

the president to do. It's the appropriate

34:33

role of the military. It's a constitutional

34:36

role for the military to defend the borders.

34:38

And also, by the way, Alice, you know posse

34:40

commentatus. It prevents the military

34:43

from acting as police on the

34:45

streets of America, but it does not prevent

34:47

military police from pursuing

34:50

enemy combatants and domestic enemies

34:52

of America who are on American soil.

34:54

Military police can be dispatched

34:57

to arrest and seek out treason

34:59

US traders, you know, war criminals,

35:01

enemy combatants who are on US soil that

35:04

there is no restriction against that. Let's

35:06

just keep all of this in mind because America

35:08

is under attack now. Alex Jones

35:10

has been suggesting that the president violently suppresses

35:13

enemies for quite some time. Dan host

35:15

of the fantastic Alex Jones focused podcast

35:17

Knowledge Fight, sent me this clip from a show

35:20

in mid two thousand seventeen. Donald

35:22

Trump could have them all arrested, just like

35:26

Lincoln did. Lincoln had members of the

35:28

State Department arrested, Lincoln had judges

35:30

arrested, and hundreds of newspaper editors arrested

35:33

because they were in open sedition falling

35:35

for the overthrow of the Republic. There's

35:37

already some evidence that President Trump's most

35:39

violent fans are willing to go out shooting

35:42

in order to ensure his political survival.

35:44

Early in two thousand nineteen, Coast Guard Lieutenant

35:47

Christopher Hasson was busted by the FBI

35:49

with a kill list of the president's political enemies

35:52

and a sizeable arsenal. In the weeks

35:54

prior to his arrest, Hassen's Google

35:56

searches included what if Trump illegally

35:58

impeached? And civil war

36:01

if Trump impeached. In a

36:03

situation where President Trump's very political

36:05

survival is imperiled, and where police around

36:07

the country find themselves overwhelmed and pushed

36:09

past the breaking point, it's not hard to

36:11

imagine Donald Trump turning to his most

36:13

fervent supporters for help, militiaman

36:16

and so called Second Amendment people like

36:18

Lieutenant Hassan. He already called

36:20

on those folks quickly during the election.

36:23

You think there's no chance he would call for violence

36:25

if his freedom was at stake. Michael

36:27

Cohen, donald Trump's lawyer and close

36:30

confident for fifteen years seems

36:32

to hold the same worries I do. Near

36:34

the end of his multi hour house hearing in

36:36

February two thousand nineteen, Cohen

36:38

made these closing remarks, indeed,

36:42

give him my experience working for mister

36:44

Trump. I fear that if

36:46

he loses the election in twenty twenty,

36:48

that there will never be a peaceful transition

36:51

of power. And this is why

36:53

I agreed to appear before you

36:55

today. In the event the president was

36:57

impeached or in the likelier event he has voted

36:59

out of the threat of

37:01

violence is very real. When I first

37:04

wrote those words in February

37:06

of two thousand nineteen, it did seem

37:08

kind of unlikely to me that

37:10

that that, you know, the president would call on

37:13

militia's to help him maintain

37:15

power. But then, just a couple of weeks

37:17

after I wrote those words, in an interview

37:19

with bright Bart News, President Donald Trump

37:22

said this, I can tell you I

37:24

have the support of the police, the support

37:26

of the military, the support of the bikers

37:28

for Trump. I have the tough people, but

37:30

they don't play it tough until they go to a

37:33

certain point, and then it would be very bad,

37:35

very bad. And let me note just

37:38

for your reference. When I listened to

37:40

Alex Jones speak at the Republican

37:43

National Convention in two thousand sixteen, the

37:45

armed security for that event where

37:48

the Bikers for Trump, tens

38:01

of thousands of Americans on the far right are already

38:03

preparing for violence. It's an almost religious

38:06

belief for some of them. If you spend enough time

38:08

browsing q and On Focus sub credits and Twitter

38:10

conversations, you will find ample

38:12

evidence of this. These people believe,

38:14

with a dedication of a cultist, that the Democratic

38:17

Party is the center of a vast pedophilic

38:19

conspiracy. There have already been three

38:21

attacks by deranged q and On followers,

38:23

including one man who tried to block off transit

38:25

to the Hoover Dam. It was an attempt

38:27

to force the president to openly go after his

38:30

political enemies. As the days

38:32

and weeks where on, the hardened core of

38:34

Q and On believers grow angrier and more

38:36

prone to violence. Here's one post

38:38

I found on a r fifteen dot com, the

38:40

largest firearms forum on the Internet. It's

38:42

from a thread full of q and On discussion. Quote.

38:45

The left is used to getting their way, so much

38:48

so that they will do anything to retain their

38:50

power. If we the people truly desire to

38:52

remain free, then we shall, in small or large

38:54

groups, have to do what can be done. And

38:57

here's another post from a q and on fan. I found

38:59

part of a Twitter change in which one person

39:01

threatened the impeachment of Donald Trump

39:03

and called the Q and Honor a cultist. Go

39:06

ahead, my cult is winning. And after you placed

39:08

articles of impeachment, you just wait to see how

39:10

many patriots pick up their guns and solve this

39:12

problem. You may want to join my cult

39:14

before it's too late for you and your family and

39:16

friends. How

39:19

many deaths would it take? How many soldiers deployed

39:21

to quell the rioting before we'd recognize this conflict

39:24

as what it was the Second American Civil

39:26

War? That fact is anyone's guess.

39:28

But every society has a breaking point, and I

39:30

can guarantee you that point would take almost

39:32

everyone by surprise. That's sort

39:35

of how conflict starts. It boils up

39:37

from protests since police violence and builds

39:39

to gunfights, bombings, and dead cities.

39:42

Back in two thousand sixteen, when I was working

39:44

on that Civil War article for Cracked, I

39:46

interviewed Status Calvious. He's a scholar

39:48

who specifically studies the sociology of

39:50

civil wars, and he's also the survivor of a civil

39:52

war. During our interview, I brought

39:54

up some of my experiences in Ukraine, conversations

39:57

i'd had with people who'd been at the Maidawn. I

39:59

mentioned the status that these people had all felt

40:01

bewildered by the speed with which the situation

40:03

had gone from protests to shooting. Statis

40:06

told me this quote, what

40:08

most other people experienced in civil wars is that

40:11

they seemed to come out of nowhere. Everybody shocked,

40:13

even the people who are studying these conflicts. There

40:15

is an element of contingency always present.

40:18

It's more about that kind of sense of shock and

40:20

fear and loss of trust and security, which

40:22

I think is one of the key features of any civil

40:24

war. I found another salient

40:26

quote in a Fortune article from eighteen

40:28

talking about how the Brexit vote had spurred support

40:31

for secession among many Americans. The

40:33

speaker is Sanford Levinson, a polypy

40:35

professor of the University at Texas at Austin.

40:38

Quote. I grew up assuming the Soviet

40:40

Union was simply part of the status quo.

40:42

All of us grew up assuming the United Kingdom was

40:45

part of the furniture. Why do we think

40:47

the United States is etched in Stone?

40:50

On two thousand seventeen,

40:53

Jeremy Christian got on a Portland max Light

40:55

rail train. Christian had an extensive

40:57

violent criminal history. He was also a

40:59

member of the far right protest group Patriot

41:02

Prayer. One popular clothing item

41:04

among Patriot Prayer members is a T shirt

41:06

with pinochet did Nothing Wrong written

41:08

on the front and r w DS

41:11

written on the sleeves that stands

41:13

for right Wing Death Squad. During

41:15

his ride, Jeremy Christian saw two young Muslim

41:18

teenage girls. He began cursing

41:20

at them and hurling racial epithets. Three

41:22

male passengers intervened and tried to get him

41:25

to back down. He pulled a knife, stabbing

41:27

two of them to death and critically wounding the

41:29

third. When police took him away, Jeremy

41:32

Christian shouted, that's what liberalism

41:34

gets you. Whatever

41:37

else you take out of this episode, I want you

41:39

to remember one thing. The Second

41:41

American Civil War is not theoretical

41:43

for everybody. For some people, it's

41:46

already started. They're just waiting

41:48

for the rest of us to catch up. Most

41:52

times, gun shots

41:55

are chair vows. Round

41:59

here huh cool.

42:03

Sleep We

42:06

could show sleep time

42:12

the chair repos me.

42:17

Come, we

42:25

don't fight, we don't right.

42:27

Even when we

42:34

don't fight, we don't right. Even

42:37

when I'm

42:40

Robert Evans and I'm just exhausted from

42:42

reading all of that. You can find me on Twitter

42:44

at I right, okay. You can find this show

42:46

on Twitter at happen here

42:48

pod, and you can find the show online

42:51

at it could happen here pod dot com.

42:53

Our music, as always, is

42:55

from four Fists